Chapter 120: Rift (4)
TL: Potato-tan
Proofreader: Asianpotato
From the moment the unknown entity emerged from the egg, the sky was growling ominously.
Even ordinary people, those who had not awakened their mana, felt a tingling static electricity flowing over their skin.
If that was the case for the unawakened, it went without saying for the wizards and warriors who had awakened and manipulated mana. All of them were staring at the monstrous figure of a winged woman who had just appeared.
Sarannen, her hands trembling, forced them together.
“That’s it. He was the one responsible for the spread of black mana across Mount Rahamurn and the mountain range, the creation of monsters, and the summoning of orcs.
The presence of the devil, as felt by her, a druid who protected nature, sent chills down her spine. She sensed the black mana spreading throughout the mountain range, and the corpses piling up on the plains were now melting away.
As a result, the forest’s weakened dominance had regained its strength, but now it felt like all that power was for naught.
Before the devil slowly approached them, all they could feel was powerlessness.
“Pull yourself together, Druid! We are not dead yet.”
Chenpa bellowed fiercely, pounding his chest. The orc warriors behind him pounded their chests, too. However, their physical condition was clearly not normal.
It was common to see large sword wounds, and there were even those whose wrists or arms had blown off. In his battle with Heson, Chenpa had even lost an eye.
“That’s right. And God will protect us.”
Kai stood next to Chenpa. The black tattoos drawn on his brown skin squirmed, forming new shapes and letters.
“This is the last fight on this battlefield. Let’s hold out a little longer.”
“Hold out? What difference will that make?”
Kai nodded at Sarannen’s question. His eyes turned to the forest on the left.
“Hold out until our greatest reinforcements arrive. That is our goal for now.”
“Are you talking about Russell? He is. . . . . .”
The last time he saw him, he had been fighting a giant ogre. No one who witnessed the battle could forget the immense shock and vibration it caused, even from the edge of the plains.
They gradually approached the center of the plains, and at one point, they disappeared into the forest. And after a few dull echoes, it was quiet. No one came out of the forest.
“He can’t be dead.”
Chenpa asked, scratching his sunken eye.
“How can you be so sure? Honestly, that ogre, Lashe, is no less than a true descendant of the giants.”
“Considering what Russell has fought before, he would have survived even a more formidable monster than that.”
“We don’t necessarily have to wait for Russell.”
Jess, who had sheathed his sword with a clang, stepped forward.
“Our strength is not insignificant either. We have the druid Sarannen-nim and the champion of Vulcan Kai-nim,. Even I, despite my weak powers, will do my best. And my Lord?”
“Did you call me?”
“I would recommend that my lord evacuate the remaining troops to the interior of the territory.”
Lord Tatiana is not such a dull leader that she cannot understand the intention conveyed in Jess’s words. To be honest, the remaining soldiers and mercenaries are unlikely to be of much help in the upcoming battle.
Instead, they are more likely to become a hindrance. Ordinary soldiers and mercenaries, who have not even awakened their mana, will suddenly transform from allies to enemies in a situation where even warriors who manipulate mana cannot be certain that the devil’s magi will not overwhelm them.
It is rare for anything to be as threatening as a sudden transformation into a monster in the middle of one’s own army. Jess, as a paladin, had experienced many of these things.
In the past, a village he had been sent to on a mission to subdue a devil had, on the contrary, fallen entirely to the devil.
The sudden transformation of the villagers, previously considered harmless despite their inability to assist, into monsters and their subsequent attack was truly terrifying. Even now, thinking about it sends chills down his spine.
“Are you telling me to run away now?”
Lord Tatiana glared at Jess. However, Jess did not avoid the Lord’s gaze. He is no longer a fledgling knight.
“Your lordship’s soldiers are exhausted. I have provided healing to those who sustained serious injuries, but they still require prompt recuperation. In this situation, there is no point in reinforcing troops who can’t even hold their swords properly. Please follow my advice, my lord. Return to the territory and strengthen the defenses.”
Lord Tatiana’s wavering eyes turned back. The exhausted soldiers were standing with trembling legs.
They had been rolling around with the monster for at least three or four hours, but it was difficult to estimate the exact time due to the sun’s hiding behind clouds. Even if they had not realized their fatigue due to the excitement of battle, the lull would have brought back all the fatigue they had forgotten.
Lord Tatiana, who had no decent wizards, did not have any magic that could encourage them now.
“I will do as you say. Defeat that monster, that devil.”
At the Lord’s words, Sarannen, Kai, and Jess nodded. All of them, as guardians, great warriors, and knights who served nature and God, could not easily ignore the devil’s actions.
“My warriors and I will go with you.”
Chenpa said.
“We have a responsibility to resolve this situation.”
The movement was swift. The lord, the soldiers, and the mercenaries quickly retreated to the territory, while the rest stood in the center of the plains and approached the devil, who was still motionless.
The devil, radiating magi, remained motionless even as he observed their encirclement from a distance. Instead, he appeared content, as though they were preparing a delectable feast for him.
However, Sarannen had discovered something else.
“I don’t think that monster can move yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look. It has wings, but it doesn’t seem to be trying to fly yet. The wings aren’t that big in the first place. Furthermore, the connection between the monster’s legs and the flesh connecting it to the ground suggests a poorly formed body. It probably needs more time, or maybe it needs more ingredients. We might be able to kill it if we go in now.”
“You’re right, guardian of nature.”
Sarannen jumped at her sudden arrival. The paladin Jess and Chenpa also raised their guard at the sight of the woman, who had suddenly emerged from the shadows.
“Who, who are you?”
“You look similar to that monster. Are you on the same side?”
Calia made an appearance.
“My name is Calia. I have business with that devil.”
“What does that mean? Are you on the same side, or not?”
“Stop it.”
Kai interjected at that moment, and Chenpa took a step back. It was an attitude that showed respect and admiration for Kai.
“Kai. Do you know who this person is?”
Kai nodded.
“She is one of our comrades.”
No further explanation followed. Chenpa stepped back when Kai said so, but Jess and Sarannen could not approach Calia.
She was beautiful, but her aura was different from that of a human.
“That devil, Geliotos, turned me into a vampire. A long time ago. Now I will tell you how that devil was able to leave his incorporeal spirit form and walk on the ground with a body.”
Calia spoke quickly.
“The devil’s name is Geliotos. He offered me a deal, and I accepted his power in my thirst for revenge. His magic and the spells I possessed transformed me into a new species, a vampire. Even before that, there were monsters who prolonged their lives and sought immortality through bloodsucking, but I stood out as a little more unique. In contrast to them, who could not reproduce or increase their numbers, I was able to create a bloodline with a vertical chain of command through the permanent consumption of my power.”
Geliotos proposed a deal to Calia to extract the magical properties flowing in her blood. It was to give him, who floated around in spectral form, a new garment of flesh.
“However, before the devil could take my body, I found myself in a state of self-imposed seal. This was not because I was concerned about the futility of retaliation, but rather because I lacked the will to live. Perhaps it was because of this that Geliotos was unable to acquire a new body and roamed aimlessly.”
However, Geliotos had come up with another way. He combined Calia’s spells with his own to create the Stone of Life spell, which could extract and crystallize the human life force.
He used those stones to awaken the sealed Calia and transform humans and orcs incapable of reciting a single spell into warlocks.
And now, Geliotos had gone a step further and succeeded in shaping his own flesh. It was the body of the winged woman who was now flexing her hands in front of them.
“However, that’s why he became mortal. He probably didn’t care about that.”
Calia’s eyes narrowed as she stared at the devil, who bore a striking resemblance to her but possessed an entirely different appearance. She possessed black membrane wings, black skin, and horns adorning her head.
However, the people gathered here were no pushovers either. Kai, Sarannen, Jess, Chenpa, and Calia, each taking the lead, closed in on the devil.
Until then, the devil had been quietly kneading his flesh, drawing liquefied corpses and blood from his legs to his upper body. As he did so, his black skin grew darker, his membrane wings grew thicker, and his horns grew larger.
The air was growing more and more sharp, making it feel as though one would cut their skin if they moved hastily.
The devil stared intently at the faces of those who surrounded him.
“A degenerate bat, a disgusting knight of the sun, a champion of a wannabe god, a youngling of nature, and a converted orc. You do not seem like a party of heroes who would stop a devil.”
Without a word, Jess’s sword extended first. As the sword slashed sideways, burning with golden holy power, Geliotos raised his arm to block it.
Clang!
It was not the sound of an arm and a sword colliding, but Jess did not care. He immediately took a step forward, put his weight on his left leg, and swung the shield in his left arm.
“Keuk!”
Jess flew backward with his crumpled shield. The devil, having released the leg from its connection to the ground, kicked him.
“Haterma, Eson!”
Sarannen extended both of her palms toward Geliotos. As a green light and flash shot out, the devil wrapped his membrane wings forward to block his entire front.
Quaaaah!
A trickle of blood flowed from Sarannen’s mouth as she shot out a reddish beam. Forcibly squeezing out the depleted mana during the battle caused an internal injury.
While Jess was knocked away and Sarannen was holding the devil’s legs, Kai and Chenpa rushed in.
At that moment, Geliotos slammed the ground, and at the same time, countless eggs that had been sprouting around the devil exploded.
“Ugh!”
Sarannen also stumbled, unable to continue her spell due to the explosion that had occurred under her feet.
“Kyaaaah!”
Monsters sprang out from among the exploded eggs. The monsters, which had not properly formed their limbs, dragged their crushed lower bodies around with two arms.
“Haaaah!”
With Chenpa’s battle cry, his few remaining warriors charged at the monsters with swords, axes, and hammers. Kai had returned the brown orcs from Uruk as orcs, and they picked up the weapons they had gathered from the battlefield and began to kill the monsters.
Sarannen’s magic flowing over the plains had prevented any more corpses from liquefying since the first large egg appeared, but the amount of blood and life force that the devil had gathered in that short time was considerable.
As a result, there were many monsters that hatched and emerged from the ground in the form of eggs. Orcs, with their ankles bitten off, swung their swords with fire in their eyes.
While the orcs were dealing with the monster cubs that seemed to have come from hell, Calia, Jess, Sarannen, and Kai confronted Geliotos.
Calia grinned.
“I also know a thing or two about blood.”
Upon placing both her palms on the ground, the devil’s absorbed mana began to reverse its flow. The blood that Calia’s dominance reached stopped circulating toward Geliotos with a shudder and instead flowed into Calia.
As she chanted in that state, Geliotos realized that his physical regeneration and flesh molding were slowing down a little, and he looked back at Calia.
“You ungrateful wretch. I will make you pay the price for delaying my grand plan by 800 years.”
“I don’t want to hear that from the guy who tried to take over my body.”
Calia uttered a spell in one breath, and after finishing her chant to the devil, she shouted a trigger word.
Along with her spell, the shadows around her swayed and tightened around the devil. Unlike when she confronted Lashe, the blood and life force that filled the plains supported her spell. It was Calia who had stolen and used the mana that Geliotos had gathered to create his body.
“How dare you.”
The devil’s entire body erupted into bluish-black flames. The devil’s appearance rippled strangely with the black mana, which was a different color from his red hair and eyes.
In front of the devil, who had burned the shadows, Kai, who had his entire body covered in the red holy power of Vulcan, rushed in and slammed his fist down.
Thud!
The devil’s grip trapped the fist, which had enough brute force to shatter a house-sized rock, preventing it from moving at all. Vulcan’s holy power attempted to burn Geliotos’s body, but the speed of its restoration was even faster.
The devil’s hair fluttered up into the air, and mana burst out of his red eyes.
“You can’t burn me with the holy power of such a backwater god.”
Bang!
Kai flew backward, just as Jess had done earlier during the devil’s attack. Jess, who had recovered his strength, charged in his place. He had discarded his crumpled shield and was holding his sword with both hands.
“Haaap!”
The sword, seemingly composed of light, swung as a brilliant yellow light of holy power enveloped it.
Boom!
Geliotos’s right hand caught Jess’s sword. However, unlike before, the sun’s holy power melted the devil’s mana and succeeded in cutting through his palm and forearm.
For the first time, the smile disappeared from Geliotos’s mouth.
“That hurts a little.”
Crack!
At that moment, Jess’s sword broke in two. Jess’s eyes widened in disbelief, and the devil’s left fist shot into his unprotected abdomen.
Bang!
Jess rolled over and over, spitting blood, and then collapsed. The long trail of blood spoke volumes about his serious condition.
Papapapam!
Geliotos raised his head at the sound of air breaking. Green-tinted mana arrows were swooping down from hundreds of meters above.
Sarannen’s magic had been stored and materialized while Kai, Calia, and Jess were attacking.
“Not enough.”
However, Geliotos raised his black hand into the air without changing his expression.
Pwah!
In that instant, the magi that Geliotos had thrown into the sky swelled up rapidly and blocked all the flying arrows. It was as if he had taken Calia’s shadow spell and used it as his own.
Pababababang!
As soon as Geliotos blocked the arrows, they exploded, creating sharp green wind blades that flew toward him. The cutting power was so great that it tore even the devil’s skin to pieces.
“Kyaaaah!”
“Keuk, kyaaaah!”
The wind blades slashed the monsters into two or more pieces, causing them to scream and die. However, the monsters that died that way were once again liquefied and flowed to Geliotos.
“Ugh!”
Sarannen let out a muffled scream. She had failed to notice Geliotos’s rapid movement, which had completely avoided the wind blades.
“Sarannen-nim!”
Jess, who had been spitting blood, shouted.
“I was wondering how good the life force of a druid would be like. It tastes like this.”
Geliotos chuckled as he rubbed Sarannen’s back with the hand he had pierced.
“Huh?”
Swoosh!
With a whoosh, Geliotos’s body vanished. The devil reappeared a few dozen meters away. It was moving at an incredible pace.
“Oh, my.”
Calia, who had forced Geliotos to retreat, checked on Sarannen.
Red blood was gushing out of her chest and back wounds. It was a fatal wound that, if not treated immediately, would kill even a druid.
“Raise the shadows against the tide of death.”
At Calia’s spell, Sarannen’s shadow rose up and filled the hole. The flowing blood stopped, and her pale skin regained its color, if only for a moment. However, it was only an emergency measure.
“You look delicious, too.”
At the soft whisper in her ear, Calia jumped to her feet and swung her sword. Her eyes soon widened. The devil was standing right above Calia’s sword tip, looking down at her.
“Remember your deal. Realize the paradox of your existence. You will become a part of me!”
The devil’s outstretched hand split into dozens of tentacles and pounced on Calia. Calia infused mana into the sword she was holding and exploded it; at the same time, she drew blood from the ground she was standing on and created a new weapon.
“Kehaak!”
Geliotos screamed for the first time as he retreated from the sword shards that had exploded under his feet. The shards that had filled the front of his body had created countless scars on the devil’s body and made him bleed.
“Ugh!”
Calia waved her hand from bottom to top, creating a wall of shadows as the tentacles that the shards had not torn apart shot toward her.
Crack!
The materialized wall of shadows shattered in an instant, and the tentacles that had broken the wall created blood spears with their blood, which flew through the air with a bloody gleam.
The severed tentacles fell to the ground without giving Calia a moment to relax. The devil flew in and kicked Calia in the abdomen, sending her to the ground.
And so, everyone collapsed. They were bleeding profusely from their mouths, noses, and eyes.
Their power did not reach the devil. The clouds and magi trapped the sun god’s holy power, while Vulcan’s holy power remained weak. The magi’s erosion suppressed the druid’s power.
That’s how the devil, enveloped in bluish-black mana, stretched out his tentacles and lifted their necks.
“Keuk. . . . . .”
The four of them were suspended in the air, their necks and limbs bound by tentacles.
At that moment, a huge shadow passed over the plains. Four large wings, an elegantly extended neck, and a long, fluttering tail.
All the eyes on the plains looked up. So did Geliotos.
“Huh?”
The shadow’s form was gone. Instead, a man fell from the sky against a backdrop of gray clouds.
A white, single-edged axe lodged in the devil’s chest as one of the man’s arms blurred.
“Ack!”
And from the axe, frost and cold spread at an incredible speed, freezing the devil’s body. The chest, stomach, arms, and legs, as well as the tentacles, turned white and hardened, dispersing the cold.
“Break!”
Those who recognized the neutralization of the tentacles let out a shout. Each of them broke free from their restraints and fell to the ground.
“Ahahahahahaha!”
Geliotos, who had burst into laughter, tried to pull out the axe embedded in his chest with a rough hand movement, but instead, the axe began to rise straight up.
The man was still falling at the end, holding a jet-black greatsword as black as his own hair.
In a spherical shape, a massive amount of magi burst out of the devil’s mouth and entire body, causing the surroundings to vibrate. The man did not back down from the spherical wave, but rather brought down his greatsword.
The black blade tore apart the spherical wave of magi and continued on, cutting the devil from the top of his head to his crotch.
The devil, split in two, splattered blood and entrails from his cross-section. Even so, the devil did not die, and the red eyes in his face, which were moving further apart, looked at the man until the very end.
The split vertical lips curved into a smile.
“I finally met you, Russell. Is this a good place for you?”
“I’ll make it better.”
The man’s great sword cut across the devil’s eyes.
Four pieces of the shattered eyes each clearly reflected a purple eye.
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